The punditocracy's Seven Biggest Blunders of the 2008 election

[Lunar]

#5 isn't true, McCain isn't devoting the bulk of his resources to unexpected states.  His buys in Indiana are reasonable, in North Carolina and Missouri they are moderate.

He's unexpectedly not devoting resources in a key media market of an unexpected key Obama state (VA) and unexpectedly devoting minimal resources to what were thought to be swing states (WI, NM, IA, [CO?]).


Obviously the Hillary issue is the dumbest one of the news cycle.  Considering that Obama had basically identical policy issues to Hillary (a cheap trick on his part, letting her triangulate and then he, with the better personality image, copying) , only racists and die-hard experience advocates would be left for McCain to grab up.... after Obama ran a series if scary ads against McCain's economic/healthcare/whatever policies. 

Considering that Palin enjoys higher negatives among women than men (a product of female Democratic bias, fosho, but still), it's clear that it's not a feminism issue at hand either.

Most bitterly contested primaries involve more ideological fights than Hillary and Obama did and the press completely ignored that.  The two biggest policy fights Obama and Hillary had were some technical health plan issues involving mandates (no one cares about) and a widely discredited plan involving the suspension of the gas tax that the Obama campaign (with media help) masterfully handled.   If you think Hillary is the greatest, it's hard not to vote for Obama, unless you were only voting on experience or racism, and letting "not be Bush" be the second priority over either of those previous qualities.

But yeah, the PUMA issues is interesting.  It's not that Hillary voters won't come over for Barack (at least those who would have voted for her again against McCain, which not all of those in Appalachia would have*), but rather that they'll be less enthusiastic about Barack.  This is a critical issue that the press didn't pick up.


*In the case of many states that regularly vote GOP at the presidential level, Democrats still voted for Hilldawg vs. Barack at the primary level, and many McCain supporters, I'm sure, view Hillary in more favorable terms than Barack Obama.